NOAA is proposing to designate two new marine sanctuaries: a 1,075-sq. mi. area of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin and a 52-sq. mi. stretch of the tidal Potomac River in Maryland.

The Wisconsin site contains shipwrecks from  the 19th and early-20th centuries. The Maryland site contains wrecks from World War I, as well as sites related to Native American cultures and maritime battlefields from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

NOAA seeks public comments by March 31.

Caption: A diver swims over the two-masted schooner Walter B. Allen, sunk in 1880. (Photo Credit: Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society)